Ford lied through his teeth

Vincent J. Curtis

21 Jan 22.

RE: Ontario easing restrictions.  By Nathan Denette of the Canadian Press.  Published in the Hamilton Spectator 21 Jan 22.

Premier Doug Ford put on his gravest face, looked into the camera, and lied through his teeth.  He lied to protect his political skin and the reputations of the medical professionals who have badly advised him.

Ford said, “The data was clear, we needed to act.  Today, we know it was the right decision…Additional measures were one more tool to blunt the spread of Omicron and protect our hospitals.  The evidence tells us that these measures are working.”

One problem, the measures were imposed on January 3^rd, the daily cases had already peaked at 18,500 and dropped to 11,400 on January 4^th.  Daily cases were already in steep decline, but actually rose slightly through January 9^th - after ‘additional measures’ were imposed!

The science is that lockdowns don’t prevent the spread.  That’s been known since April, 2020, and verified in a landmark study from Stanford University Medical Center published in January, 2021.  Ontario’s own data supports this conclusion.

Omicron is wildly more contagious than delta, so what made them think that ‘measures’ that failed before were going to work with Omicron?  The lockdown measures of January 3^rd were an exercise in mass psychology and expectation management, not preventive medicine.

Two years into a pandemic “emergency,” Ontario hospitals still get surprised and overwhelmed by a fifth wave.  That speaks more to healthcare management than to the emergency.

Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me!

What you also aren’t hearing is the sheer folly of the get ‘em boosted campaign.  Doctors in South Africa report that boosters don’t work against Omicron, and Israeli doctors report that a fourth booster doesn’t produce enough antibodies to fight off Omicron.  We can see this already in all the famous people vaxxed and boosted who come down with a breakthrough Omicron infection.

There’s no use arguing that getting vaxxed and boosted reduces the severity of the infection.  Vaccination was supposed to induce herd immunity to prevent the spread, and it hasn’t.  If the aim is to protect the hospitals, then a much smaller and less intrusive approach was to follow a therapeutic strategy, wherein those in imminent need of hospitalization could get monoclonal antibodies and an anti-viral drug like Remdesivir to deal with an actual case.  (At its current rate of spread, COVID-19 will require nearly 30 years to infect everyone alive today in Ontario.)

The 'vax at all costs' strategy was irrational and misconceived from the start, and continuing it, now that we know vaccines aren’t working, is insanity – or worse, a complete failure of imagination.

Ford lied multiple times.  First, to say that “actions were required,” “The evidence is clear that they worked,” “that is was the right decision”, and “were a tool to blunt the spread of Omicron.”  All in pursuit of a ridiculous program to get people boosted against Omicron.  A lie by omission was that time was needed to get "needles into arms," well that sure didn't cause the wave to peak!

Luckily, Omicron is milder in its effects than previous strains, meaning this could signal the end of the pandemic.  Vaxxed, boosted, or not, Omicron is going to induce natural immunity into the community, and that’s what’s going to reduce the spread.

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